Methods and devices making it possible to control the peak power and the pulse width of a high-power transmitter are known from the prior art.
The use of bipolar transistors is still today inescapable for obtaining peak power levels of greater than 500 W in a reasonable volume.
A commonly used solution consists notably in controlling the base emitter bias current of n successive common-base class C stages, such as described in the applicant's patent EP 06685932.
One of the drawbacks of this solution is that the control elements are placed in series in the power supply of class C bipolar transistors, thus giving rise to losses that decrease the efficiency of the transmitter. Moreover, these types of transmission chain require the employment of significant cooling means as soon as the load rate exceeds 1%, thereby limiting its employment for airborne applications exceeding 500 W peak, for example.